“Home” for the holidays: Food traditions old and new

As far back as I can remember, I’ve had buttermilk waffles for breakfast on Christmas morning.

I’ve been back in the US for the last week or so, seeing family and friends and in general, doing all those little Christmas things I’ve done all my life. I baked and decorated sugar cookies with my nieces and nephews, drank egg nog out of my Santa mug, shopped with my mom, wrapped presents for my dad, watched the Charlie Brown Christmas show and listened to all my favorite holiday songs.

There’s such a simple pleasure in observing all these traditions, eating my Mom’s Mexican wedding cookies– aka pecan sandies–sugar cookies, raspberry almond bars, and way too many more for my own good.

And I was thinking about how lucky I am that I get to continue these traditions, while also getting to incorporate all sorts of traditions from my adopted homelands of Sweden and Australia as well. So that means my holidays typically also include Swedish herring and snaps as well as Robert’s Australian pavlova. It’s a veritable smorgasbord–that’s actually a Swedish word, did you know–of food.

These Santa mugs are older than me! I can remember drinking milk in them as a kid.

Making cookies with my niece and nephew. Given all the dough we ate, it’s a wonder that we had any left to bake and decorate.

Some of the finished sugar cookies.

Lots and lots of peanut butter kisses.
The Christmas tree at my parent’s house has hand-blown glass ornaments that my mom collected for years from a craftsman in Houghton Lake, Michigan, where we vacationed every summer.